


Rhysand's Perspective

by ashryverblue



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, Excessive wordiness and drama, Explicit Language, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Sex, POV Rhysand (ACoTaR)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 16:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13392126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashryverblue/pseuds/ashryverblue
Summary: An angst ridden Rhys POV on the events pre-ACOTAR (Under the Mountain) up to the beginning of ACOMAF. Lots of angst, suffering and dramatic descriptions of feelings.Trigger warning for referenced/implied rape.Rated T for mature themes but no graphic sexual content.





	Rhysand's Perspective

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wondering about changing the rating of this fic to M due to the level of angst and implied sex/rape. Please let me know whether you think I should or leave this rating at T. This has been a WIP collecting dust for over a year so I hope you like it.  
> Thanks for reading :)

His soul was nothing but dust. He was being consumed by it, and it stifled him, choked him. He had been trapped in darkness for all of his immortal life, and he was used to it. In fact, he craved it. He would have given up every piece of his broken soul for just a taste of Night wind on his face, rushing past his wings. Darkness was a living thing, a being. He felt at home with the darkness, because it was his equal, his missing half. It was as broken and cruel as he was, and the nightmares concealed beneath a cloak of the dark were the same ones hidden behind his violet eyes.

He breathed in the dust of the mountain, forever watched by the flame haired queen. He clung to the blackness in his soul, bathing in it, painting a mask over his skin to hide the truth. Every word from his lips was a lie, every breath was a deception.  With every mind his darkness shattered, a piece of who he was fell away. He was a patchwork of scars, and he was too tired to keep stitching himself together.

No matter how long he tried to battle them out the whispers still twisted their way into his mind. They haunted his nightmares, battering rams of accusations crashing through his subconscious. He felt the stares scalding him wherever he went. _Amarantha’s whore._ He was so far gone that it might as well have been true. He was nothing anymore. His title, his court, none of it had any meaning. He hid himself behind the cruel mask of Rhysand, High Lord of the Night Court. For each mind he broke under Amarantha’s orders, another part of himself broke too.     

He remembered their names in his sleep. _Cassian Azriel Amren Mor._ He remembered them. Not so much their faces, but more their souls. The light inside them, the happiness that light had sparked in him. He dreamt of a beautiful city of colour and music and he remembered that it existed. He supposed it made him a bad person, to be happy that they were safe and alive but still resent that he wasn’t a part of it. That’s the thing about dreams. The most painful thing: waking up and realising they’re not real.

Then he started to dream of the beautiful human woman who liked art and colour. He watched her paint illustrations on wooden drawers and stalk through snow covered forests with a bow raised to her cheek. He knew that she would be the only release he might ever find in the world of the living. He knew that the cure for the still bleeding scars and this kind of pain, that was so all consuming and ran so deep and raw, was her. He could get lost in her hands, and her eyes and her laugh. He would do anything, anything, to see her one day.

But there is something like a drug in wanting what you cannot touch. When all you know is death and blood and pain, there is something addictive and wonderful and yet so destructive about loving a dream. He didn’t know if she existed. He almost convinced himself that she was a figment of what was left of his imagination. But he knew in his bones, in his soul, in his very being that she was real, yet just out of his reach. Perhaps that was worse in a way. Knowing there was something out there in this fucked up world that could bring him unending happiness and bliss but that he was forever destined to be apart from it. The only thing that eased his mind was knowing she was far away from all of this. She was young and alive and seeing the sun.

As time passed, he began to see her more clearly. His dreams of her were in sharper focus, the feel of her energy brighter. Her essence felt closer, touchable. There was only a thin veneer of distance and mortality separating them now. In his dreams of midnight skies and cold winds flowing past his wings he saw her by his side and felt her beating heart.

But she wasn’t alone in his visions. She was accompanied by a familiar figure. She was enamoured with Spring’s golden lion who mimicked kindness and love towards her. The ugly thoughts and aggressive compulsions he knew lay beneath were hidden from her view. It sickened him to see them together, their intimate moments and soft caresses. Despite this, he got the overwhelming sense that she was for once happy. So he tried shutting her out, and letting it be, losing himself for a time in self-loathing and the suffering of others, biding his time and gritting his teeth each night he endured fucking the queen who he spent his days plotting to undermine and kill.

When he first saw her in the flesh, she was terrified of him. He was a monster in her eyes, something wicked and cruel. She hated him, and he deserved it. That was the first time he truly feared for her mortality. She could be crushed with a flick of the finger from any of the all powerful denizens of this ruptured, fractured world.

His fears were cemented into reality on their next meeting. He watched the cruel red queen put her through pointless trials, tossing her around in front of an audience like a rag doll, and he watched her suffer through it. For all they all underestimated her, she was strong. A fighter. Always falling to heel for the queen and playing into his role, he toyed with her himself. He dressed her up and painted her skin. Behind the games and deception, he healed her wounds and soothed her tired, mortal heart with music from the far reaches of his memory, leaving behind merely a spiral of ink on her arm to bind them together.

Then came the day he watched her die. He heard the crack in her bones and felt the life ebb out of her. He screamed and fought and raged to save her, all while her High Lord of Spring did nothing. All that mattered was her life, and he put everything he had into saving it.

The powers of the seven courts converged to repay the debt owed to their cursebreaker. Together, they breathed the gift of immortal life into her broken mortal bones, and he heard a heartbeat echoing through the broken saviour of their world. A revival. She lived. His existence suddenly had meaning again. A soothing calm trickled through his soul. The queen who’d tortured and enslaved him was gone. The woman he loved was living. He would soon see his city, be reunited with his friends. He felt like everything might actually be fine.

Until he watched her leave with that golden beast. He wanted to fly after them and bring a storm of shadow and fury down on the Court of thorns and roses, for deceiving her and once again stealing her from him. He wanted to roar enough to shake the earth down to its very core, but he didn’t.

He didn’t, because there was still a certain glow about her then. Her sharp fae ears and powerful, sculpted body didn’t mask the softness in her human heart. Happiness, relief, safety. Feelings he couldn’t take from her. Not yet. Even if he had cause to tear her roots out of the earth and turn her reality inside out, he couldn’t. She believed she was in love, she believed she had everything she’d ever need, and who was he to challenge that and try to take it from her? He didn’t deserve her for himself anyway.

Velaris. The townhouse. The Court of Dreams. Busying himself with the good things, he tried to block out the bond, guilt and memories of innocents’ suffering preventing him from calling on the bargain they’d made.

Some nights were better. There were dinners with them. Cassian’s drunken companionship, Mor’s laughter, Azriel’s solid support and Amren’s sarcastic quips saved him for a time.

Other nights he was haunted, plagued by echoes of screams and pain reverberating through him. Sometimes, waking up shaking, throwing up and then crying, he felt a twin tortured soul briefly tangle with his own, only to have it melt away into the night, and he was alone again.

Sometimes he’d close his eyes and it all came rushing back. He only saw her behind his own eyelids, but he missed her. He missed her with a savage, unrelenting craving that no amount of alcohol could wash away. He just missed her so much.

As more time passed it became harder to shut out the bond, to shut her out. He couldn’t see her face, but he got snapshots and impressions. The withered, wasting shell that remained of her crushed hopes and dreams. The possessive thrusts of the man who claimed to love her. Her spirit and curiosity going stale trapped within the walls of a beautiful, sinister home. He felt her vomiting from dream horrors. Alone. Selfishness and deliberate ignorance leaving her there without anyone to hold her hair and rub her back. Stars framed by an open window. A breath of night air caressing her brow was the only comfort he could give.

A white dress, watching eyes, a smiling High Lord. Red petals, red blood, red hair. A cry for help.

Something snapped. Following the tug on the bond, he winnowed to her in a whirlwind of dust and anger. A glance at her wrist and there was the tattoo. The fear and panic on her beautiful face was a shot to his heart. So he grabbed her hand and spun her away to his realm, leaving behind a fractured House of Spring and a jilted lord.

From there, the bond unfurled itself between them, and optimism grew in his heart with it. He gave her simple freedoms. He gave her the knowledge with which to grow and protect herself and the ability to explore the depths of her power. For a week each month, he teased her and pushed her to her limits. He did every wild stupid thing he could to make her feel something.

He was beginning to sense the difference in her. He could feel it in the bond. Things were starting to change, and for the first time in fifty years, Rhys felt like there was hope.

 


End file.
